


And For My Next Trick...

by Elkian (SuperImposed)



Series: Pulling A Rabbit Out Of The Hat [1]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Fairy-Tale Elements, Gen, I have Betas but thank you, Julian Devorak Route - Reversed Ending, Low-Romance, My brain is doing plot and I'm making it everyone else's problem, Not Beta Read, Rating for language and canon-based weirdness, Weird Plot Shit, ao3 post my tags challenge, fair warning, gonna be honest im really happy w how this came out beta or no, im just v excited okay, note that the relationship tag is NOT applicable to the rest of the series, there will be romance but it will be later and not with Julian so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27015604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperImposed/pseuds/Elkian
Summary: ...I will make this turtle...disappear.
Relationships: Apprentice/Julian Devorak
Series: Pulling A Rabbit Out Of The Hat [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1971832
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	And For My Next Trick...

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Mirror Cracked](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24921061) by [Lana_Morrigan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lana_Morrigan/pseuds/Lana_Morrigan). 
  * Inspired by [Talons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755560) by [Ethuilriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethuilriel/pseuds/Ethuilriel). 



> The inspiration was pretty much entirely unconscious and unintended but, like... that doesn't make it any less *valid*.
> 
> **Note** : Be aware that this will be the only fic in this series where the Julian/Apprentice tag is applicable (and it's not exactly central here). If you are looking for a sweet-hot lovin' Reversed End with fairy tale elements, _The Mirror Cracked_ may be more your speed, and comes highly recommended by me. _Talons_ by Ethuiriel (https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755560/chapters/59853544) is also relevant.
> 
> Warnings: Strong language, canon-compliant or -adjacent unreality, off-screen violence, some body horror, MAJOR ROUTE SPOILERS.

She finds him, of course, in a tavern.

(He remarks upon the Devil trying something different, a more care-worn version. She's not impressed.)

He doesn't let her touch him, at first. She respects that.

She opens the door to let Scout and Malak in (Scout boofs something and Sacha irately informs her that no, she wasn't planning to fuck him in the middle of the tavern floor so come IN already).

Now he begins to doubt. Also, blush.

Her hard expression cracks when Malak immediately flies over to preen Julian. She doesn't seem much troubled by the… feathers, the transformation ("Julian, I just got directions from a giant, 2-headed leech. Before that, I almost died fighting a mirror. You think THIS bothers me?").

He gives her a look and when she steps closer, she lays her hands on the table, within easy reach. Her eyes (eye, actually-) are on Malak, but when he reaches, her hand turns over, palm-up.

She's warm, and filthy, and bloody, and  _ real _ .

...young lady what the FUCK happened to your face. No not the scars (at least not in this moment) the EYE. Did you think this was a good bandage  _ oh, holy  _ **_shit_ ** **-**

Dr. Devorak makes an appearance and Sacha gamely lets him clean up her eye. There's plenty of disinfectant at hand, at least.

(Sacha makes a crack about the lack of bathing facilities, and they both turn at the sound of running water. That tub wasn't there before, because that back room wasn't there before.

"...yeah, no, that's freaky. I'd rather be dirty." )

She berates him for not looking for his family and holds his head and weeps on him when he tells her about fighting the Devil and he leaps up to talk about how monstrous he is-

She's not impressed.

(He left lines up to her wrist when _first_ he jumped, horrified by her face, but she's not going to mention it. "If it's not bleeding, it's fine" has served her quite well in the new world.

...maybe not 'well', but functionally, at least.)

He agrees to leave but FIRST my dear we are going to bathe (and he is going to discreetly check you for more injurHOW DID YOU GET ALL THESE SCARS).

Fighting mirrors, she reminds him blithely. She  _ looks _ like a mirror, impacted glass, stark lines spiderwebbing from her groin to her neck, cracked across her arms, the big array on her face, smatterings down her legs. 

He doesn't exactly have a memory to compare most of it to but he's PRETTY SURE most of those were not there before-!

Eventually, they get on the road.

They find Vesuvia, and Portia (it took her a second to recognize -or perhaps  _ accept _ \- her brother in his new form; Sacha gives her darting eyes and paling face a pass of grace.

By the time they find the others, however, she's heartsick and furious with it (for how little most people would see it on her face) and outright snaps at Asra.

"I swear to whatever  _ fucking _ gods are left, the next time someone assumes  he put these scars on me, I'm flinging them into the fucking stratosphere."

Asra has the decency to look ashamed. But it raises a concerningly good point…).

They find Vesuvia, Portia, Nadia, Asra, Mazelinka, and more. The mages have put their back into defining something like boundaries, keeping Vesuvia more or less together.

Sacha doesn't go in.

She begs off for the marks on her face and her body, threatens to ground Julian if he abandons his sister, and goes to think.

(Also ends up killing a few slimy… venomous… porcupines? that keep trying to take chunks out of her.)

She comes back. Meets her friends. Her friends, her family, the man who…

...the man who she knew for maybe 2 months before he threw  _ everything _ away to save her.

(When they'd met again, she'd made good on her threat to shake him and shout at him for being a passionate, loving, dramatic, _defeatist, faithless fucking _ **_idiot-!_ **

She knows… she thinks she isn't blameless in this. Her efforts to appease his guilty conscience blossomed into a warped codependency, far more he to her, even before he remembered…

She apologizes, too. She's not blameless. She should have communicated. Shouldn't have assumed they'd have time to work things out.)

(She remembers the pieces of mirror force-swallowed into her very soul, and chuckles to herself on all of the  _ reflection _ .)

She comes back. She meets her friends. She looks to Julian.

In this run, Sacha never offers-threatens-pleads to break his chains. She's always thought herself a realist. They have a job to do, for the moment.

("I've seen all sorts of strange things," she tells Portia, tone carefully casual cautiously light. "Furniture and walls growing all kinds of appendages; eyes, fingers,  _ ears _ , mouths, even hair…. Had anything like that here?"

Her gaze pins Portia in place.

"I know  _ exactly _ what you mean," says she in response, cheerful and bright-ly leading Sacha - and Malak, and Scout, and Julian, and Nadia- somewhere… quiet.)  


"I'm going to find The World."

Of course he follows her.

(She never said she loved him back. It's not the kind of thing she would lie about.

She loves him, probably. But the burning blood of his heart is -has always been, though she doesn't remember it- far faster to ignite than hers would ever be.)

They get close. He kills monsters and she kills monsters and she kisses him, chastely, lightly. He removes her bandages.

(He tries to tell her (and nearly all of Vesuvia) of how monstrous he is; "Doctor Devorak," she stops him with a hand on his chest, "the very first thing you did upon realizing I was real was to care for my wounds and probably save me an eye."

"No," he blusters, flusters, feathers fluffing, "that's not-"

"You're right." Ruthless. Kind. Eyes hard on his, mirror-bright, "an infection that close to my brain would likely have killed me, never mind the eye."

He gives up on that front.)  


They reach the end.

("Have you ever heard the story of the Snow Queen?" she asks him, bathing in the warm light of what's left of The World oasis.

Mirror-shards glitter in the depths of her eye; past her teeth, in the dark interior of her cheek.)

(Is her heart frozen, then? Cold and hard with eternal winter?

No, no, Julian has wept more than enough hot tears against her breast; her mirror-eye weeps seeming at random, unknown to her until careful talons wipe it clear.

Her heart burns as the light of The World rises, as the Devil's chains rattle behind and beyond her (distant, but not by enough).

She will see this through.)

"You must eat me."

"Say again?" Julian squeaks, mild horror magnifying as Sacha takes this calmly.

The World shakes their fragile, wizened head.

"It is too late; he is come; he is killed me." Yet the turtle's eyes twinkle still. Their tiny forepaws are held out to her, to Sacha - the Apprentice, the Protected, the Fool.

She carefully takes the turtle from Nafizah's hands.

"This-" But Julian is cut off by the horrible ripping of firmament. He wheels around, dagger-sharp teeth baring as the Devil tears, quite literally, into the Oasis.

Where his hooves step, the grass - the World - dies.

"You."

The Devil is indeed grown, far more powerful than ever before, ever could be considered by mere mortal imagination. His eyes regard Julian's bristling form with none of his usual careless, cruel amusement.

"You."

He steps forward, claws outstretched. They surely have many dramatic things to spit at each other, claws to bandy and brandish, powers to whip about furiously-

_ But no _ , the Star-Hanged-Man-Wheel-of-Fortune-Chariot- **_Arcana_ ** whisper in her mind.

The Fool is, for as long as Julian's reckless heart stays true, safe from all the Devil can bring to bear.

_ Do it _ , Strength purrs, echoes of gentle hands on not-quite-human-any-longer shoulders. More would join, but Sacha-Fool had an inkling of how this would go. She needs no further encouragement.

She swallows the World.

(The turtle shrinks and shrinks and shrinks; to the size of a mouse, a pea, a grain of rice, getting smaller as her hands move closer.

_ Funny _ , is Sacha's last real thought.  _ Feels like cardstock _ .

And then she swallows.)

(The Devil screams.)

(Julian screams.)

(There is no one left to scream.)

**Author's Note:**

> Further unconscious inspiration of note:  
> Snow Queen - after my brain dropping the comment in the fic I (re??)read the story and um. Hm.  
> Sleeping Sun, Nightwish - been playing on repeat in my head for the entire write. Looked up the lyrics and all I can say is, _accurate_.
> 
> Thank you for reading this far! If you enjoyed my odd little trip into fairy tale realms, I'd love to hear it (emojis, "+1 kudo", etc. are perfectly welcome!).
> 
> Crit: I churned this out literally less than 24 hours from the idea first hitting me, and there's more on the way. I do have several possible betas available, I just really wanted to post this because I'm honestly quite pleased with how it came out. Long story short: typos etc. are fine, but unsolicited criticism.... please, no.
> 
> Headsup: I may or may not edit this later, I will add a date marker for the edit if I do so.


End file.
